#2
Finansovaya Rossiya
October 25, 2001
SMALL BUSINESS IS BETTER THAN BIG BUSINESS
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
This week the State Statistics Committee released the results of a detailed study of small business, was carried out in 2000.
The investigation is unprecedented; thus far, small businesses have been investigated selectively only. However, this time the SSC managed to acquire forms from 673,000 small businesses of Russia, which makes almost three-third of the total number of the operating enterprises. As results of the investigation show, 10.2% of the entire number of employees work at small businesses; they enjoy 2% of the capital assets and 4.6% of the total investments into the economy of Russia. The major part (44.3%) of all the small businesses is concentrated in the sphere of trade and catering, and they make a half of the turnover of wholesale trade and a quarter of retail trade. Small business does not have any peculiar significance for the industries. However, there are industries where the small businesses feel comfortable; for instance, the proportion of small businesses in the printing industry is 26% and in the timber industry they make up 11%.
The main and relatively sensational conclusion of the investigation is that small business in Russia is more efficient than big business. As SSC deputy chairman Oleg Rybak said, this conclusion was "unexpected" for statisticians. As it turned out, labor productivity at small businesses is 1.5-2 times higher than the average labor productivity in Russia. Obviously, there are reasons for such successes. The fact that small business is deprived of state support and operates in conditions of harsher competition is one such reasons. Inefficient businesses fail to survive in the small business sector. As the investigation learned, one-fifth of the total number of small businesses are on the brink of bankruptcy.
